# Garry Trudeau Thinks Obama Will Win the Election **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223 "2012-10-09T16:14:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/1 "2012-10-09T16:14:49Z")
This week’s (10/8 -10/13) [Doonesbury](http://doonesbury.slate.com/) features Mitt Romney in his Mormon missionary years in Paris. Not a big deal. Except that we see Mitt. Young and shiny Mitt, but obviously Mitt, not a symbol. Trudeau has famously never portrayed a president in his strip. The closest he ever came was with Ron Headroom for Reagan, but that was a surrogate and not intended to be the actual president. Unless he’s breaking his decades’ long precedent, the only explanation I have is that he’s decided that Obama doesn’t have a chance of losing so he won’t have to deal with a Romney Presidency. Of course, even his notoriously short lead time would have required these strips to have been drawn before the debates. Do you think he blew it? Is this something new? Is this a big deal after all? Should this be in Elections? (And yes, Doonesbury hasn’t been funny for a) years, b) decades, c) ever. Go away.) ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/2 "2012-10-09T16:39:53Z")
Maybe he just can’t think of a funny symbol to represent Romney. (Of course, Gary Trudeau and Funny haven’t been on speaking terms for a loooong time. Maybe he should hold a contest on what Mitt’s symbol should be.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/3 "2012-10-09T16:46:36Z")
If worse comes to worst, he can use and Etch-a-Sketch as they symbol. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/4 "2012-10-09T16:49:36Z")
He’s never portrayed a president while that president was in office. I think that one of the Bushes got some screen time before he was elected. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/5 "2012-10-09T19:38:35Z")
If reading tea leaves to predict the outcome of the presidential race is your thing, I wouldn’t depend on _Doonesbury_. As for funny, the strip still beats B.C., but that’s setting a very low bar. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/6 "2012-10-10T06:36:52Z")
It’s still the only comic strip I read. The standard is not what it once was, but what is? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/7 "2012-10-10T17:56:24Z")
Does anyone really think Romney can win? It’s Clinton-Dole all over again. As for Doonesbury, he’s funnier when he’s not being political. The personal lives of the characters are handled well. Pop-culture stuff is satirized well. But ever since the George W. Bush administration, he’s lost his ability to be funny about politics. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/8 "2012-10-10T18:19:58Z")
Romney can win. Sadly he won’t. I actually didn’t know GT was still alive. I also didn’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/9 "2012-10-10T19:08:14Z")
I’m not sure if I understand today’s strip. Trudeau is now a hawk? He has a problem with Romney getting deferments from the draft? Let me go and do some research about how he put down Clinton for it… ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/10 "2012-10-10T19:18:24Z")
An interesting factoid from this election is none of the four candidates (Prez and Veep) have any military service, which is the first time since 1932. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/11 "2012-10-10T19:21:52Z")
I think he has problems with Romney getting draft deferments more than once, and now claiming that he longed to be in Viet Nam. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/12 "2012-10-10T19:25:50Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I’m not sure if I understand today’s strip. Trudeau is now a hawk? He has a problem with Romney getting deferments from the draft? Let me go and do some research about how he put down Clinton for it… It might have behooved Trudeau to remember that, in 1968, Mitt’s father George Romney was running for President on an ANTI-Viet Nam war platform. George was roundly mocked for saying he’d been “brainwashed.” If he’d said what he probably MEANT to say (“The generals and the State Department sold me a bill of goods- they told me we were winning and the boys would be home in a few months”), he still probably couldn’t have won the GOP nomination, but he’d still be a respected figure today. Trudeau wants to paint the Romneys as rich warmongers who kept their own kids safely out of war… but that’s not the case. George Romney was not a hawk on Viet Nam. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/13 "2012-10-10T20:08:21Z")
The sequence isn’t as clear cut as you think. [Romney’s mission:]([Mitt Romney's French Mormon Mission Deepened His Faith In Jesus, Kept Him From Vietnam Draft | HuffPost Latest News](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/mitt-romney-vietnam-draft-french-mormon-mission_n_1838260.html)"Romney’s mission) > [@](#): > > lasted 30 months from July 1966 to February 1969, but Romney also was given almost three years of deferment before and after the mission because he was a student. George Romney went to Nam in 1965 and supported it for the next two years. He didn’t come out against the war publicly until August 1967. You can’t say that he was anti-war in July 1966. We don’t know. Romney’s deferment at the time shouldn’t be an issue for anyone. You can’t defend anyone who attacked Clinton for doing so. Or Cheney. Or anyone of their generation. People do attack them, but the ones on Cheney were only from those asking why he should be treated differently than Clinton. The real issue is what Romney’s views were on Vietnam. And it’s clear that he was [pro-war](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/us/politics/at-stanford-romney-stood-ground-on-vietnam.html?pagewanted=all) in 1966. His recent statements are also clear: > [@](#): > > Mr. Romney demonstrated as well — outside, in khakis and a sport jacket, picketing the occupiers with a sign that read “Speak out, don’t sit in.” Within three months, he was bound for France, never to return to Stanford. > > Four decades later, in 2007 during his run for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Romney told The Boston Globe that while in France, "I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and representing our country there.” > > “In some ways,” he said, “it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam.” This appears to be the exact quote that Trudeau is referencing. It’s legitimate satire. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garry-trudeau-thinks-obama-will-win-the-election/637223/14 "2012-10-10T20:15:48Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I’m not sure if I understand today’s strip. Trudeau is now a hawk? He has a problem with Romney getting deferments from the draft? Let me go and do some research about how he put down Clinton for it… I’m pretty sure the strip is making fun of him being a flip-flopper. At first he says he longs to be in the war, then as soon as the other person says something negative about the war, Romney agrees and says that’s why he’s deferred twice. Yesterday’s strip had the same joke/point.